HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations
Title
The role of ontogenetic habitat shifts on the parasite communities of five South Florida fishes
Defense Date
4-27-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S. Marine Biology
First Advisor
David Kerstetter
Second Advisor
Christopher Blanar
Third Advisor
Nicole Kirchhoff
Abstract
Many reef fishes initially recruit into mangroves, and then migrate out to reef habitats as they grow and mature. Each ontogenetic habitat shift exposes migrants to previously unencountered parasite taxa, potentially increasing parasite species richness and driving changes in parasite community structure. However, studies on this topic rarely attempt to distinguish between the location effects of habitat shifts versus a simple increase in physical size. Therefore we contrasted parasite community richness and structure in Great Barracuda Sphyraena barracuda (N=84), Atlantic Needlefish Strongylura marina (N=49), Crevalle Jack Caranx hippos (N=59), White Mullet Mugil curema (N=90), and Yellow-fin Mojarra Gerres cinnerus (N=60) from three locations: mangrove, inshore seagrass beds, and offshore reef habitats. Mullet harbored the highest species richness (S=26, mean infracommunity S=2.4±1.6) and Atlantic Needlefish the lowest (S=8, mean infracommunity S=0.5±0.8). A global model including species, location, and size class was significant (R2=0.654, DF 17, F=35.91, p
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NSUWorks Citation
Brittany Nicole White. 2018. The role of ontogenetic habitat shifts on the parasite communities of five South Florida fishes. Master's thesis. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, . (479)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_stuetd/479.